Are Artists Gentrifying Sunset Park?

This week, I take a look at Brooklyn’s waterfront neighborhood, Sunset Park. With so many thriving artist studios, is it becoming the new Bushwick? Here’s an excerpt:

Where artists go, rents will rise—that’s a story told over and over in New York. Sunset Park, a working-class neighborhood in southern Brooklyn, is the latest community to experience the effects of gentrification led by the creative class. Studio rates remain far lower than in well-known artist enclaves like Bushwick, but some artists and institutions are beginning to notice changes.

Noah Fischer, a New York-based artist who has leased out studios at the 18th Street waterfront since 2005, said it started in Gowanus, which blew up from 2002 to 2005. “I’ve seen a big shift in the culture,” Fischer told me. “Especially on 4th and 5th streets, but more on 5th. The hipsters are arriving and there are coffee shops. It’s creeping south.” When that small neighborhood filled up, tenants began moving toward Sunset.